Friday, 20 July 2012

JPWRC to empower women in panchayats

The Jharkhand Panchayat Women Resource Centre (JPWRC) will
empower newly elected women panchayat members in Jharkhand, said
Hemlata S Mohan, chairperson, Jharkhand Women Commission (JWC) at the
State-level workshop on the issue of decentralisation in Jharkhand on
Monday.
Jharkhand Legal Services Authority (JHALSA), Jharkhand Women
Commission (JWC), UNICEF and Manthan Yuva Sansthan have partnered for
JPWRC that will orient and empower large number of newly elected women
panchayat members.
“We will create platforms to share experiences, provide capacity
building opportunities to newly elected women panchayat members and
provide thematic exposures on water and sanitation, nutrition, child
protection and other like issues. The Centre will also facilitate
campaign on women and child related issues at village level through
women PRI members,” said Deepak Kumar Dey, Planning Monitoring and
Evaluation Officer, UNICEF, Jharkhand.
“The State had reserved 50 per cent of the seats for women in the
Panchayat election. However, 57 per cent of the elected representatives
in Jharkhand are women. Most of these elected women representatives
belong to marginalised communities and are from poor economic
background. They are new entrants in the grassroot politics and
governance system calling for a mechanism to orient and empower them,”
informed Sudhir Pal, secretary, Manthan Yuva Sansthan.
According to Ashok Bhagat, president, Vikas Bharti, the panchayat
elections have ensured empowerment at rural level by reducing the cases
of corruption by almost 40 per cent. An increase in the number of
implementation of Government sponsored schemes at grassroots level
after the formation of panchayat has also been noticed.
More than 60 participants from various NGOs, Panchayat Head and
senior Government officials participated in the day-long workshop. The
participants shared their experience on decentralisation and
empowerment of panchayat in State during the workshop.
(The Pioneer, Monday, 26 March 2012)